Highway deaths in U.S. rise after six-year streak of declines

Fatalities also up a bit in Pennsylvania.

May 03, 2013|By Angela Greiling Keane, Of Bloomberg News

The number of people killed on U.S. highways rose in 2012 to end a run of six consecutive declines, the longest streak in the nation's history.

Crash fatalities rose 5.3 percent to an estimated 34,080 from a year earlier, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Friday. The jump coincided with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's campaign against distracted driving.

The fatality rate, or the number of people killed for every 100 million vehicle miles traveled, rose also, from 1.1 to 1.16. The agency previously pointed to declines in death rates as evidence of success in promoting safety even when absolute numbers rose.

Traffic fatalities also rose last year in Pennsylvania, though more modestly, according to statistics released last month by the state Transportation Department. Officials reported that 1,310 fatalities were recorded last year, 24 more than in 2011, or a 1.8 percent increase. Last year's total still qualified as the third-lowest on record, officials said. The fewest deaths since 1944 were recorded in 2009, when 1,256 people lost their lives in vehicle crashes.

Addressing the upward ticks in both federal and state traffic deaths last year, PennDOT spokesman Sean Brown said so many factors contribute to accidents and deaths that it's difficult to delineate specific causes. "It's hard to pin down," he said, "I wouldn't want to speculate." He noted that the long-term trend in state and highway fatalities has shown a steady decline.

The national report, which is preliminary until final figures are released later this year, gave no reason for the increase. The Governors Highway Safety Association said in a report last month that motorcyclist deaths increased about 9 percent last year to more than 5,000, meaning that could have helped spur the total increase.

Still, the increase in federal fatalities outpaced a 0.3 percent rise in the number of miles driven in the U.S., according to the Federal Highway Administration. The number of people killed last year on U.S. roads was the highest since 2008, which qualified as the third of six consecutive years of declines.

The U.S. government has tracked deaths on U.S. roads since 1899, when 26 people died in motor-vehicle crashes.